Contact 2 resolves gift card issue for St. John woman

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ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) - “I said, ‘This is horrible. This is horrible,’” said Barbara Brown of St. John.

The horrible situation Brown found herself in was the result of Christmas gift she gave to some friends: $50 worth of Texas Roadhouse gift cards she bought at Shop 'n Save.

“They went to Texas Roadhouse to have dinner. They go to pay their bill. The server comes over and says these cards aren’t any good,” Brown said. “I thought they were kidding with me. I said, ‘No, no way.’”

Brown headed to the St. John Shop ‘N Save where she bought the gift cards. She said the store manager told her there was an issue with the company that services the cards that some 300 people were in the same boat.

“They said, ‘All you have to do is call this number. It’s our customer care and they’ll activate them for you.’ Well, that’s not what happened,” Brown said.

Barbara called customer care but only found more frustration.

“They said, ‘We’re checking into it. We’re checking into it.’ I said, ‘How do you check into something you already know you had a problem with?’ Just give me the cards. Activate them. ‘We’re checking into it.’ We’ll call you. I said, ‘I’m not happy with that,’” said Brown.

That’s when she called Contact 2.

Fox 2 then reached out to Shop N’ Save for answers. A company spokesman said it appeared the cards were not activated because they were purchased through the self-checkout lanes. Customers shouldn’t be able to buy gift cards in self-checkout, but it seems the system was overridden. Barbara was charged for the cards, but they weren’t activated.

“I feel like they owe me an apology. I feel like they should make a diligent effort to contact the people that spent money there and bought gift cars,” Brown said.

After Contact 2's Mike Colombo got involved Barbara got her apology and her money back. Shop N’ Save said it’s still working to figure out how this happened and, to its credit, to make sure it doesn’t happen again.